Lights, Camera, Action! by Anh

Lights, Camera, Action! by Anh - March 2020 Scholarship Essay

Being Vietnamese-American, I embrace the virtues of both cultures that bring love and support to family and the unfortunate who struggle on life triumphs and the exploration of pursuing one’s dreams through hard work and perseverance. Engaged in two worlds, I have recognized Vietnam’s struggle to provide the children the needs to pursue their dreams while observing the issues that rise in America’s surface that prevents people from attaining a peaceful and sustainable environment. My interest and greatest challenge as a film student is making stories that impact people’s minds and bring forth a solution to resolve societal issues and racial injustice to promote equal opportunity and open people’s minds to learning the beautiful cultures the world has to offer. The ability to use my observation to create storytelling that tackles on such issues must not be overlooked, thus have led me to take this time to write to this scholarship opportunity.
As a student who is transitioning to transfer to film schools such as the University of Southern California and the University of British Columbia, I am seeking for support from scholarship organizations to not only gain an education in cinematic arts, but to also utilize my education to learn about these societal disputes and explore my artistic decisions to make touching films. My passion for storytelling grew from writing short stories and poems of my own at a young age. In addition to this, my interest in reading from Native American literary works and foreign stories on war and women demoralization has led me to deeply investigate on the morality of human condition and reflectance on the historical content with modern times in America. I intend to utilize my education in film to bring an intriguing viewpoint of the perspectives from low-income communities and minorities to a wider audience on the silver screen, and I will enhance my research and technical skills to help in alleviating poverty in Vietnam and make use of the stories of the children to empower youth in making a change to improve society’s pursuit to peace.
To amplify my skills as a storyteller, I volunteered to create and lead a service-learning project in my leadership program at my high school. I was involved in the Army JROTC Program for four years, which is an elective course that instills leadership and citizenship values through military discipline. My responsibility was conducting a survey in my school on the recognition of veterans for their sacrifice in the United States through Veterans Day and creating an art that brings awareness of a misrepresented group in my community. This was a great experience because this project shared the work among 120 students in the program to enhance their decision-making skills and learn about the lack of recognition for veterans due to negative misrepresentation of violence and the ignorance to learn of their efforts to sacrifice for freedom. Interviewing with military veterans made me further appreciate the small things I have in life and motivated me to use film as a medium to express these personal struggles in a growing environment.
In addition to this, I am involved in directing and writing a short film project in my college where I have gained a greater insight of the Native American culture through exploring the significance of their heritage items, interviewing students on bullying faced in school for being different in the community, and researching on truths about the American government and its negligence to serve for communities below the poverty line. I interviewed Native American students and teachers on their experiences in America and their struggles to sacrifice their own heritage to fit in the so-called “American culture.” Making short films like these amazed me in how little we know about society’s issues and what we can do as a community to invite differences and explore social triumphs that challenged people’s way of life.
Your organization is well noted for its dedication to supporting promising students who struggle in maintaining those financial needs to pursue their education and their aspirations. I am a student of De Anza College who proudly stands for her Vietnamese-American heritage in a greatly diverse community in the Bay Area. I continue to contribute to my community by using my education and passion for storytelling to document their perspectives and bring awareness on these stories through film to transform lives and become a voice for the voiceless. With this scholarship opportunity, it would bring forth a great step to pursuing my education as a film student in providing me the necessary skills to creatively tackle and learn about the deeper truths of society’s issues. I thank you in advance for your time and consideration for this scholarship opportunity.